1 Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our assembling to meet him, we beg you, brethren, 2 not to be quickly shaken in mind or excited, either by spirit or by word, or by letter purporting to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. 3 Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, 4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. 5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you this? 6 And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, and the Lord Jesus will slay him with the breath of his mouth and destroy him by his appearing and his coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one by the activity of Satan will be with all power and with pretended signs and wonders, 10 and with all wicked deception for those who are to perish, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 Therefore God sends upon them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is false, 12 so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. 13 But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. 14 To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 15 So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter. 16 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, 17 comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.
Commentary on 2 Thessalonians 2
2:1 our assembling to meet him: he indicated more clearly in the first letter; he said we would be caught up in the air on the clouds to meet the Lord, and thus we would be with the Lord forever (1 Thess 4:17). The Lord also said as much in the sacred Gospels, "He will send his angels, and they will gather his elect from the four corners, from one end of heaven to the other."Mt 24:31 (Theodoret of Cyrus)
2:2 purporting to be us: Deceivers have a way of counterfeiting letters under the name of some well-known person in order to mislead, so that the authority of the name may recommend something which would never be accepted on its own. (Ambrosiaster)
2:3 the rebellion comes first: The Great Tribulation at the end of time. It will be a time when almost all men shall rush from the Truth to that Deceiver. (Ishodad of Merv) man of lawlessness: he is the Antichrist; as it is taught to us in both the ancient and the new prophecies, and especially by the Apostle John 1Jn 4:1-3. (Tertullian)
2:4 exalts himself against every: From this it shows that the Antichrist will even overturn idolatry, which the Devil introduced, and he will put an end to every sect which opposes him. (Theodore of Mopsuestia) temple of God: There are a few different interpretations. One is that he means, the Temple of the Jews which has been destroyed. For if the Antichrist comes to the Jews as Christ, and desires to be worshipped by the Jews, he will make great account of the Temple, that he may more completely beguile them; making it supposed that he is the man of the race of David, who shall build up the Temple which was erected by Solomon. (St. Cyril of Jerusalem) For he will not come to us Christians, but to the Jews- not for the sake of Christ and Christians, for which reason he is called Antichrist. (St. John of Damascus) Thus it appears that he will either be of the circumcision or at least circumcised himself, so that the Jews will have the confidence to believe in him. (Ambrosiaster) As for the second interpretation, it will be in the real divine temple, that is in the Catholic Church. (St. Andrew of Caesarea) Or he referred to the churches, in which he will arrogate to himself pride of place, striving to declare himself God. (Theodoret of Cyrus) St. John Chrysostom and Theophylact also include both the Jewish Temple and the Christian Churches. Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus and Oecumenius include only the Christian Churches and not the Temple of Jerusalem. St. Irenaeus, St. Hippolytus, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrosiaster, St. John of Damascus, Apollinarius of Laodicea and Origen include only the Temple of Solomon. St. Andrew and Haimo give an either/or, as well as St. Augustine and Thietland. St. Augustine, Thietland and Lyra propose that the text may mean that the Antichrist becomes the counterfit temple in comparison to Christ as the Temple.
2:6-7 restraining: Severian says it's the Holy Spirit that restrains, while Ishodad of Merv, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus say its God's decree. St. John Chrysostom, Haimo, Ambrosiaster, Thietland, Tertullian claim its the reign of the Roman Empire. I am of the opinion that this is concerning the binding of the Devil that we read about in Revelation 20. The Fathers don't appear to make that connection, but it seems quite obvious from the eyes of an ammillenialist. I assume that there are some reasons why the Fathers did not make that connection; 1) is because some Fathers had not considered the book of Revelation to be canonical, and therefore would not have connected those passages together. 2) St. Augustine is |
the one who brought greatest development early on to Rev. 20 and the binding of the Devil, and therefore had not advanced far enough with it to connect these two passages. mystery of iniquity: Some commentators claimed that to Nero is given the name mystery of iniquity, and that he had become a worker of godlessness. On the contrary, the apostle is indicating the heresies that had sprung up, by leading people away from God. (Theodoret of Cyrus) Or, the mystery of iniquity began with Nero, who in his zeal for idolatry killed the apostles at the instigation of his father the Devil, and went on to Diocletian, and most recently Julian. (Ambrosiaster) And that, all the wicked who have gone before are signs of the Antichrist. (St. Thomas Aquinas)
2:9 activity of Satan: Here Paul shows that the Antichrist is one thing, and Satan, who works in him, is another. (Ishodad of Merv) And this implies that Satan will use him as an instrument, working in his own person through the Antichrist. (St. Cyril of Jerusalem) The Antichrist will do everything with the Devil. (Interlinear Gloss)
2:11 God sends upon them: that is, God will permit the Antichrist, the worker of lies, to come to them. (Haimo of Auxerre)
2:12 God chose you: In this passage the foreknowledge of God comes through clearly. He knows the minds of all before they are born, nor is it a secret to Him of who will believe. He has known from the beginning who would become believers and which of them will increase in faith and not decrease. (Ambrosiaster)
2:13 our gospel: With these words Paul shows that they were converted to faith by his teaching. (Thietland)
2:15 tradition: The Apostles, led by the inward instinct of the Holy Spirit, handed down to the churches certain instructions which they did not put in writing, but which have been ordained, in accordance with the observance of the Church as practiced by the faithful as time went on. (St. Thomas Aquinas) The very tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning was preached by the Apostles and preserved by the Fathers. (St. Athanasius) That is, by succession from the Apostles through the saints who came after them. (St. Gregory the Great) We must turn to tradition, for everything cannot be received from the divine Scriptures. That is why the holy Apostles handed down certain things in writings but others by traditions. (Epiphanius of Salamis) In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us. And this way there is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the Apostles until now, and handed in truth. (St. Irenaeus) Here perhaps, someone may ask: Since the canon of the Scripture is complete and more than sufficient in itself, why is it necessary to add to it the authority of ecclesiastical interpretation? As a matter of fact, Holy Scripture, because of its depth, is not universally accepted in one and the same sense. The same text is interpreted different by different people, so that one may almost gain the impression that it can yield as many different meanings as there are men. Thus, because of the great distortions caused by various errors, it is, indeed, necessary that the trend of the interpretation of the prophetic and apostolic writings be directed in accordance with the rule of the ecclesiastical and Catholic meaning. (St. Vincient of Lerins)
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